Chapters 29, 30 and 31 Summary and Analysis

"Valkyrie and the Stauffenberg Plot"

Claus von Stauffenberg was a member of Hitler's staff who, ever since the invasion of Poland, had been repelled by the ways of the Reich and who, as the unsuccessful end of Germany's war was beginning to appear inevitable, made one last attempt to blow up Adolph Hitler. After surviving the attack with little more than mussed hair, Hitler proclaimed he had been saved by providence, and ordered the arrest and trial of all the conspirators. During this process, Donanyi's concealed records of Nazi atrocities (see Chapter 20) were found, their contents clearly implicating both Donanyi and Bonhoeffer. As Germany was repeatedly bombed into submission, and as Maria (according to her surviving letters) was losing hope, Bonhoeffer and the conspirators who weren't immediately tried and executed were transferred to less comfortable prisons. In Bonhoeffer's case...